Author Archives: Roy H. Williams
All My Weird Friends
The Monday Morning Memo for March 28, 2011 Ken and Barbie are perfect. Ken and Barbie are plastic. Ken and Barbie are hollow. I do not prefer them. True friends are flawed in endearing ways. Quirky. I’ll never forget the morning when I asked a roomful of newly arrived Wizard Academy students to tell a &hellip Continue reading
How I Know the Recession Is Over
The Monday Morning Memo for March 21, 2011 As you do or don’t know, I make my living as an advertising consultant. My income is directly tied to the growth of my clients’ businesses, so you can be sure I keep a close eye on their income trends. Although my office works with only a &hellip Continue reading
Why Advertising is Rarely Scalable
The Monday Morning Memo for March 14, 2011 Most people believe advertising is scalable. These people are right. And they are wrong. SCALABLE: When a large-scale problem can be solved by the straight-line, linear expansion of a small-scale solution, that solution is scalable. Example: You want to put a box of loose snapshots into photo albums. &hellip Continue reading
America's Finest Hour
The Monday Morning Memo for March 7, 2011 What makes us America? If you were to name a single incident in American history that you feel was America’s finest hour, what would it be? Would it be a moment of patriotic sacrifice? “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my &hellip Continue reading
But Why Are You Going to College?
The Monday Morning Memo for February 28, 2011 “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.” – Proverbs, ch. 22 Stand before kings? Sounds great! But how does one get “skilled in his work?” American children were taught for 100 years that all we had to do to be &hellip Continue reading
Does God Like You?
If you’re reading this sentence, it’s because the headline (A.) startled you by its intrusive, personal nature, (B.) irritated you by it’s assumption that God exists, (C.) intrigued you because you never really thought about it, or (D.) touched a pre-existing suspicion or belief that hides in your heart. Headlines – including the subject lines &hellip Continue reading
The Wisdom of a People
How does one reconcile these two famous proverbs? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That first platitude would argue that pre-emptive action is a waste of time and resources; “Leave well-enough alone.” The second platitude says quite the opposite; “A stitch in time, saves &hellip Continue reading
Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition
A Brief Examination Into the Health of Your Marketing STEP 1: What percentage of your sales volume comes from repeat or referral customers? These customers are driven to you by past satisfaction. Don’t read any further until you’ve decided on a percentage. Give it your best guess. STEP 2: What percentage of your sales volume &hellip Continue reading
Harnessing the Midlife Crisis
If you’re a man, you will definitely have a midlife crisis. When it happens – and it can happen a number of times – you can let it lift you to the next level, or you can let it unravel your life. Wizard Academy’s Dr. Richard D. Grant, a clinical psychologist, was chatting with a &hellip Continue reading
Random Entry
The Key to Getting Attention. A Guaranteed Cure for Writer’s Block. In an over-communicated society, predictability is the enemy of effective writing. A recent Yankelovich study tells us that Americans are confronted by more than 5,000 selling messages per day – radio and television and magazines and newspapers and billboards floating on an ocean of &hellip Continue reading
